copy posts so they can be re-ordered

I have been scouring the codex but so far have not found a method that would allow to copy a post so that it can be re-ordered, I have a client asking to be able to display a number of posts from a particular category (say recent projects) and have them display in a list on the home page, they would like the ability to reorder this list, all I can think of to do in this case would be to treat it like a linked list and copy the post(items) to a temporary location sort of like popping it off the stack and then shuffle the others up in the stack so that it pops down to the bottom, is there anyway to accomplish such a feat? I am sure its doable I just don’t know enough yet to even fathom how to do it.
so am kind of looking for suggestions at this point.